Usui had many students, among whom was an ex navy admiral named Chujiro Hayashi. Hayashi had a very different approach to Reiki than Usui. Hayashi was a naval officer and was a fully trained medical doctor. Unlike Usui's intuitive approach, he used the Western approach whereby a disease or injury is diagnosed then a corresponding treatment was found to match the diagnosis. This very left brained approach was a complete contrast to Usui's right brained approach. As a result of this, Hayashi devised standard hand positions to use for specific complaints. As he no longer followed Usui's own teachings, Hayashi formed his own Reiki system which he called Hayashi Shiki Reiki. Unlike Usui's teaching system, Hayashi would teach the equivalent of level I in five 90 minute sessions compared with Usui's 1 year. Hayashi gave attunements (probably still Reiju) on four of these sessions and this is probably the reason that some Western schools still use four attunements at level I.

Usui and Hayashi were two extremes of the system, one intuitive and the other methodical, but both systems worked and used the same Reiki energy. The year after Usui's death in 1926, Hayashi and two other naval officers who were all students of Usui, formed a society in Usui's honour which they named the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai. Usui was given the posthumous honour of being named as the first president of the society. The Gakkai continued to work extensively with Reiki. Also in 1927 there was a booklet issued to all naval officers which incorporated a selection of qi gong exercises for building and moving subtle energies within the body. This became incorporated into the Gakkai practices and can be found these days published as the "Original Usui Handbook". These are published under the belief that they are Usui's practices, but they are actually a combination of the qi gong booklet and of Hayashi's own diagnosis/treatment notes. The Gakkai is a closed society about which it is still difficult to gain any information. Once past level II, students are required to take a vow of silence and teachers are only allowed to teach Gakkai members. The total number of Gakkai members is limited to around 500 and so we currently have no information regarding the higher levels of practice in the Gakkai. A Reiki master/teacher named Hiroshi Doi is our main source of information regarding this. He is a Gakkai member who has not taken training above level II and so is free to speak. He does attune his students using Reiju but this differs from the version of Reiju taught by Usui's living students in that two steps are missing from Doi's system. Again, this does still work, apparently just as well as the full Reiju system.

After Hayashi's death his organisation was taken over by his wife who continued to run the clinic. Legend has it that Hyashi committed suicide by calling his students around him and stopping his own heart. This was because Japan was about to enter world war II and he was liable to be conscripted to fight. After working as a healer for many years he was unable to revert to his earlier lifestyle.

When reference is made in the West to Japanese Reiki this is generally taken to refer to the system as used by Hayashi and The Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai. Frank Arjava Petter has published much information on this system but believes it to be Usui's system, and not the Hayashi system.

Hawayo Takata   (Born 24 December 1900 - died 11 December 1980)

Hayashi had set up his own clinic where several healers worked with a single patient at the same time. One day a Hawaiian lady walked into his clinic named Hawayo Takata. Hawayo Takata is one of the most important links in the history of Reiki. Born as an American citizen in Hawaii of Japanese descent, Mrs. Takata became ill with a lung condition, abdominal pains and a nervous breakdown. She visited her parents in Japan in the hope of finding a cure for her ailments. A regular hospital diagnosed that surgery was to be inevitable, but as she wished to avoid this, Mrs. Takata asked if there was any alternative treatment for her problem. She was told of a clinic run by Chujiro Hayashi which offered Reiki treatments. She visited the clinic and received treatment over several months and was completely cleared of her complaints. Mrs. Takata was fascinated by Reiki and asked to stay on at the clinic to learn Reiki for herself. Hayashi agreed and she worked in the clinic as payment for her training. Eventually, reaching the equivalent of the modern second degree, Hawayo Takata returned to Hawaii and set herself up in practice. Some years later Chujiro Hayashi visited her in Hawaii and took her to master/teacher level.

Following the second world war, Mrs. Takata moved to North America and started to teach Reiki. At this time anything of Japanese origin was very unpopular in the USA following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour and the resulting war between the two countries. It is probably for this reason that Mrs. Takata kept quiet about the true origins of Reiki as a Japanese spiritual discipline with its roots in Buddhism and Shinto. She, instead, promoted Mikao Usui as a Christian lay preacher who was a theological lecturer who had worked both in Kyoto and Chicago and dropped much of the Japanese methods from the teaching of Reiki. If this had not happened it is highly likely that we would not be practicing Reiki in the West today, and we have a lot of reason to be thankful to Hawayo Takata. Until very recently virtually no information regarding Reiki has come out of Japan and Mrs. Takata was the only link that we had. She introduced some of her own practices into Reiki, such as keeping Reiki a totally oral tradition and insisting on the use of the same standard hand positions during all treatments.

Mrs. Takata attuned 22 master/teachers and almost every person who uses Reiki in the West can trace their lineage back via Hawayo Takata and Chujiro Hayashi to Mikao Usui. The Reiki system which was taught by Mrs. Takata is in many ways different from the original methods taught by Usui, but it still remains a complete and valid system. It works and works very well and is ideally suited to western ways of life. The original Usui system under which it can take several years to progress form one degree to the next would not easily fit in with our lifestyle.

At The Colours of the Dawn, in the three Usui Reiki levels, we teach a combination of all three systems taught by the three Reiki master/teachers described above, covering all the major features and techniques of each system. We run two Japanese Reiki Techniques workshops (practitioner and master/teacher) for students who have completed levels II and III with other master/teachers. This will bring them up to the same level as students who have learned the entire system with us.

We feel that all three systems are completely compatible and that the best solution is a combination of methods from both systems. They all obviously work and they all stem from the original work of Mikao Usui. Remember that it was Usui's first intent that the system should be used as a means of spiritual development. The ability to heal others was secondary to this. Upon reflection though, a full healing on all levels would incorporate physical, emotional, mental and spiritual healing. All are necessary to become whole and to help you execute the life plan that you are here to accomplish. We grow spiritually by giving unconditionally to others. This we can do by using Reiki. It is not possible to give to someone else or to heal someone else without going some way to healing yourself at the same time. As you approach closer to your ideal self then you are at the same time progressing on all levels, so use of Reiki at any level is a step of spiritual development.